A Tale of Two Cities Summary

A Tale of Two Cities is divided into three books, tracing the movement from imprisonment to revolution to sacrifice:

Structure at a glance

• Book the First: Recalled to Life. Dr. Manette is freed after 18 years in the Bastille
• Book the Second: The Golden Thread. Life in London; Darnay, Carton, and Lucie's love
• Book the Third: The Track of a Storm. The Revolution engulfs the characters in Paris
• Two cities. The narrative moves between London and revolutionary Paris
• The sacrifice. Everything builds to Sydney Carton's climactic act at the guillotine

Dickens's three-part structure mirrors the novel's theme of death and resurrection.

This summary of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens opens in 1775 with the famous declaration that it was "the best of times" and "the worst of times." Mr. Jarvis Lorry of Tellson's Bank travels to Paris with young Lucie Manette to recover her father, Dr. Alexandre Manette, who has just been released after eighteen years of wrongful imprisonment in the Bastille. Broken and obsessive, Dr. Manette has been "recalled to life" and is nursed back to health in London by his loving daughter, whose devotion becomes the "golden thread" binding the story together.

Five years later, the French émigré Charles Darnay stands trial for treason in London and is acquitted, partly thanks to his striking resemblance to the cynical, wasted lawyer Sydney Carton. Both Darnay and Carton come to love Lucie, but she marries Darnay. Carton, recognizing his own ruined life, privately vows to Lucie that he would do anything, even die, for her or anyone she loves. Darnay, meanwhile, is secretly a member of the cruel aristocratic Evrémonde family, whose crimes against the French peasantry, including the abuse chronicled in a letter Dr. Manette once wrote, foreshadow disaster.

As told in this A Tale of Two Cities summary, revolution erupts in France. In Paris, the vengeful Madame Defarge and her husband lead the peasants, and Madame Defarge secretly knits a register of those marked for death. When the faithful family servant Gabelle is imprisoned, Darnay returns to Paris to help him and is promptly arrested for being an Evrémonde aristocrat. Lucie, Dr. Manette, and the others follow him into the heart of the Terror, hoping Dr. Manette's status as a former Bastille prisoner can save his son-in-law.

Darnay is freed once, but is immediately re-arrested. At his second trial, the Defarges produce Dr. Manette's old prison letter, which unknowingly condemns Darnay: it denounces all Evrémondes for the rape and murder committed by Darnay's father and uncle. It is revealed that Madame Defarge is the sole surviving relative of those very victims, fueling her merciless hatred. Darnay is sentenced to die by the guillotine within a day, and Dr. Manette, devastated that his own words doomed his son-in-law, breaks down, setting up the novel's extraordinary climax.

A Tale of Two Cities ends with Sydney Carton's supreme act of self-sacrifice. With Darnay condemned to the guillotine, Carton, who has always loved Lucie and looks almost identical to Darnay, sets a daring plan in motion. Having overheard Madame Defarge plotting to have Lucie and her child killed as well, Carton arranges for the entire Manette family to flee Paris immediately. He then uses his leverage over the spy John Barsad to gain access to Darnay's cell.

Inside the prison, Carton tricks Darnay into swapping clothes with him, drugs him unconscious, and has Barsad carry him out to the waiting coach. Disguised as Carton, Darnay escapes Paris with Lucie, their daughter, and Dr. Manette. Meanwhile, Madame Defarge storms Lucie's lodgings to catch her mourning (which would incriminate her), but instead confronts the fiercely loyal Miss Pross. In the struggle, Madame Defarge's own gun goes off, killing her, so that her thirst for vengeance destroys her at last.

Sydney Carton goes to the guillotine in Darnay's place, comforting a frightened young seamstress condemned alongside him and holding her hand to the end. The conclusion of this summary of A Tale of Two Cities is one of the most famous in literature: as he faces death, Carton finds peace in a prophetic vision of a better future and of the family he has saved. His final imagined words are, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known," transforming his wasted life into one of meaning and redemption.

Here are some of the most famous quotes from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. These verbatim lines capture the novel's themes of contradiction, sacrifice, and redemption:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."

"I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come."

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

These A Tale of Two Cities quotes are among the most celebrated in English literature, framing the novel's opening paradox and Sydney Carton's redemptive final sacrifice.